Activity patterns in Broca's area during visual short-term memory tasks.

In this study, near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to measure activity in Broca's area during a visual short-term memory task in young and older adults, comparing brain activity during three types of stimuli (numbers, easy-to-name shapes, and hard-to-name shapes) and examining how additive language functions are involved. We hypothesized that the Broca's area would be activated in both age groups when memorizing numbers, but not when memorizing hard-to-name shapes. The results showed that visual memory capacity is reduced in the elderly, but not when easy-to-name stimuli are used. This indicates that adding a verbal function to the input of visual information by the elderly seemingly suppresses the effects of aging on memory capacity. This result indicates that the addition of verbal functions may complement other types of cognitive functions that have declined.